When would you ditch a buddies weights?

[Genesis]

its not just the risk of a fizz.

The far greater risk (assuming he doesn't have a deco obligation) is of CAGE. If his airway is closed and you shoot him up from as little as 5' it is possible that you could cause a pulmonary embolism, and if the path of that gas is into the arteries leading to the brain then you just killed him (assuming he wasn't already dead!)

That would be my primary concern in bringing him up. From 25' you may not have a choice, since an O2 tox hit is extremely unlikely at that depth and you can't help him on the bottom.

But from 100' it not only gets tougher to call but the damage from a bad call goes way up too (an embolism event from 100' is going to be pretty severe!)

 

[Spectre]

reefraff once bubbled...
When he was dead - or if I wanted to make him that way.

Oh crap. Here we go again...

This time I'm staying out of the way of the wrath

 

[Fetch]

How about, er, only ditching weight at depth for the reason it was intended in the first place - establishing neutral (or in this case, positive) bouyancy when the other diver's other methods of bouyancy compensation (BCD/Wing/Drysuit/whatever) are no longer functioning enough to effect an ascent?

Honestly, it should almost never happen (pull dumps coming loose being an obvious exception), even if the other diver is out of air you can orally inflate their BCD while monitoring your own bouyancy for a controlled ascent.

You don't, on the other hand, want to try to rely on your bouyancy compensator to get your buddy out of a jam. Lifting x pounds of negative while attempting to calm the other diver and deal with your own bouyancy would be... difficult.

Short of a complete BCD failure of the rescuee, the only other situation I could see would be sending a drowned diver up if you were facing a "killer" deco obligation... certainly outside of a rec scuba discussion.

jeff

 

[Big-t-2538]

Big-t-2538 once bubbled...

.........

However, for my rescue class, we were trained to drop the belt upon discovery of the victim if they were unconscious and not breathing........I am going to have to go back and look at my manual for specifically what the protocol is, but we were trained to drop the belts.

.............

Alright, I've consulted my NAUI text for my RESCUE DIVER course and found this in unit 8.

Rescuing an Unresponsive Victim

An unresponsive diver will drown without immediate assistance Unfortunately this may also be the case even with your help. Realize that getting the unresponsive diver to the surface and to emergency medical care as quickly as possible represents the best chance of survival. Take the chance, despite a possible diving illness or additional injury due to your resue efforts

I somewhat disagree with the taking a risk talk, yeah, you take a rick, but NAUI is making it sound like you shold take a hit if you have to and we were trained never to jeopardize our safety

Steps to take:

1. Survey the scene and assess your personal safety. IS there any obvious danger that has injured the person and can it injure you? Where is the buddy and the group, if any?

2. Approach the apparently unconscious diver cautiously, and attempt to get a response by tapping the diver on the shoulders, or shaking the victim. Are the mouthpiece and face mask in place? Are there any exhalation bubbles?

3. IF the mouth piece is in place, leave it in, if it is out, leave it out. Do the same with the face mask

this is the one the most of you are interested in

4. Remove the diver's ballast and empty the air from the diver's and your own BC. (If the victim is wearing a lot of weight to offset a bouyant dry suit, for instance, it may be better to leave the weight in place better to control the victim's bouyancy. Also, purge the dry suit of air before ascending)

5. Way too long to write about how to bring the victim to the surface which no one has disagreed with yet.

6. Upon reaching the surface, inflate your BC and drop your ballast, maintaining the victim at the surface. Follow the procedures for surface rescuefrom this point.



Anyway, this is what we were taught from our NAUI instructor, and I can't fault her for doing that. She is a damn fine instructor, but this is something I still would like to sit down and talk about with her. I feel it is something that can be changed, adn I am going to approach it in that manner. Alright....talk to you all later, I just thought I'd update you on my findings....

 

[SDAnderson]

Spectre once bubbled...


Oh crap. Here we go again...

This time I'm staying out of the way of the wrath

Running from the Wrath of Cohn? He's not that scary.

I have been suprised at the number of folks that are apparently sitting around contemplating the details of the rather diabolic act of launching another diver like some kind of Polaris missile.

And people wonder why I wear my weight belt under my crotch strap in open water. Oh, well. Say, let's start a thread asking for reasons to carry a really sharp knife. I'll start the list by referring to this thread...

Steven

 

[lucid]

-
When to ditch a buddies weights.
When an aggresive shark comes around you stab your buddy in the kidney with your knife and then dump their weights. Turn and swim the other way. With a little luck the shark will follow your buddy.

This is a little trick I learned from someone on these forums

 

[Genesis]

I too wear my weight belt under my crotch strap.

That has already kept me from losing it once at 100', which would have been VERY un-funny.

I disagree with dropping a diver's ballast in an unconscious/unresponsive rescue situation unless there is no other alternative, and you are willing to accept that by doing so, if the diver is not already severely injured (e.g. he has toxed) you WILL likely injure or even kill him by doing so.

Of course you can't kill the dead, but if he's already dead then there is also no advantage to be gained from a buoyant ascent, providing you can stay with the body.

An unresponsive diver will drown without immediate assistance

This is NOT necessarily true. It is true in an awful lot of these situations, but it is not universally so.

A toxed diver who still has his regulator will not drown without immediate assistance if he is in the tonic state. If you shoot him to the surface in this state you will severely injure him due to barotrauma, and may even kill him due to an AGE since his airway is almost certainly closed.

Unfortunately this may also be the case even with your help. Realize that getting the unresponsive diver to the surface and to emergency medical care as quickly as possible represents the best chance of survival. Take the chance, despite a possible diving illness or additional injury due to your resue efforts

That is NOT true in all cases, and it is this kind of blanket statement that I have an issue with.

If you KNOW the diver could not have toxed, then I agree (mostly) with this statement, although in that case he's probably dead already (and you can't cause additional harm to the dead.) But how can you possibly know? Even if you see a tank that has no Nitrox markings, or one that declares that the diver is clearly well above the MOD, you still do not know what is actually inside that tank!

Consider the diver who you find in 40' of water, unresponsive, regulator in mouth. The tank has gas in it. Could he have toxed? Yep. What if the tank has pure O2 in it, never mind how its marked? Can't happen? While very unlikely, it surely can. How will you deal with it when the coroner analyzes the gas supply and finds, indeed, 100% O2 in the tank?

This is yet another case of blanket statements made that are too simplistic for the general case, and unfortunately, the general case is what you find underwater.

Second, let's look at the odds.

If the diver is found unresponsive (not breathing) and is not your buddy, what are the odds you are still within the window during which a rescue is possible? In other words, if the diver has not toxed, what are the odds that he is not already dead? Remember - that window is approximately 4 minutes from the cessation of breathing to the initiation of rescue breathing and/or CPR. The time it takes to surface is only part of the equation, and if you shoot him to the surface (without you) then you are relying on surface support to (1) identify that the diver is there (they are not expecting that rocket-like ascent!), (2) retrieve the diver and (3) begin CPR or rescue breathing efforts.

Let's say that the odds are that 10% of the time the diver will be toxed and in a tonic state. The other 90% of the time the problem is something else.

Do you go with the odds? Save 9 but kill 1? Sounds good, doesn't it?

Would it change your mind if it was established that if you DO shoot him to the surface, the combination of the embolism he will suffer, the delay from the event to your discovery of the diver, and the delay at the surface before effective CPR can be commenced makes the odds of being in that 4-minute "rescue window" are essentially zero?

In other words, in that 90% of the cases, the diver either is already dead or will be before CPR can be initiated.

In the other 10%, you either kill or seriously injure him by sending him up - an injury that is 100% avoidable if you DON'T send him up!

Now if you send those same 10 divers up you kill 9 dead people - no harm done - but you either kill or severely injure one diver who otherwise would be fine!

Now I am not saying these ARE the odds.

But without some real-life statistical application to the situation, and an examination of what the odds actually ARE (I don't have the answer to that question and it appears that NAUI doesn't either!) I would argue that the blanket statement in their text is irresponsible at best.

Took a guess at where the missing italics close belonged - spectre

 

[MikeFerrara]

scubababe once bubbled...
So Mike, other than some amazing downcurrent possibility, can you think of any reason to dump someone's weights underwater?

None other than if they were too heavy to bring up any other way which shouldn't happen either.

 

[MikeFerrara]

cdtgray once bubbled...
True, this is the basic scuba discussions area, but the situation certainly could come up on a dive with an unintended deco obligation. In which case it's entirely up to the judgement of the rescuer - skip their deco or send their buddy up on a bouyant ascent. Each has risks, but they have to get the non-breathing diver to the surface asap.

I hate unintentional deo obligation. IMO, that is just the kind of diver who is likely to reach over and drop you weights.

How to handle an emergency with a decompression obligation is something every technical diver must consider and plan for. Sometimes all you can do is attempt to minimize risk to the rescuer while maximizing the chances of the victem.
Most recreational divers who stray into deco will only have a few minutes of an obligation. Speaking for MYSELF I would not hesitate to blow off a few minutes deco to get an injured person to the surface. If my obligation was longer the amount of risk I would be willing to take would depend on my assesment of the injured divers chances for survival. There are also procedures for missed deco. While I might be willing to get bent to save a life I won't die to bring up a dead person.

These are all good reasons not to violate (or even push) the ndl unless you know what your doing.

 

[Lawman]

Good comments from people that obviously know what they're talking about. Thats what makes this such a good board. To focus the discussion more I see the problems as these:
1. encountering an unconcious diver you really can't determine what is wrong with them in the few seconds you have. They could be dead , toxed or asleep. [my PADI instructor had a student with narcolepsy who fell asleep at about 80']
2. If he stays underwater he will probably die in a few minutes.
3. Is the risk greater making a controlled ascent and arriving with a drowned diver or dumping the belt and having a fizzed diver arrive at the surface?

I would opt for the quicker ascent. The boat has O2 and thats what the diver needs NOW. The treatment is the same for all of these injuries so get it started fast and get him to a hospital fast where they have advanced life support.

A Hobsons choice, eh?